{"id":96368,"date":"2025-07-27T09:30:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T09:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/96368\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T09:30:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T09:30:11","slug":"nycs-public-schools-are-flunking-the-ai-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/96368\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC’s public schools are flunking the AI test"},"content":{"rendered":"

The mayoral primary was all about affordability: for the New Yorkers of nearly every income level facing parallel crises, and, for the winning candidate. But sometimes, what a race wasn\u2019t about says just as much about the state of the city: the largest public school system in the country is failing and no one was talking about it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s objectively weird \u2014 and it\u2019s about to be completely untenable, given the massive moral crossroads staring us down: AI. Will New York let algorithms optimized for profit reshape how our children learn and live \u2014 or will we build a public alternative that protects childhood, empowers teachers, and prepares every student for a democratic future?<\/p>\n

Right now, New York City\u2019s schools are failing our children \u2014 and failing our future. One in three public school students is chronically absent. Fewer than 15% of Black and Latino students are proficient in math. Despite spending nearly $38,000 per student \u2014 more than any other large city in the country \u2014 we rank 37th in reading and 46th in math among urban school districts. Meanwhile, teachers are burning out. Students are falling behind. Parents are desperate for help they can\u2019t afford.<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence is already infiltrating our children\u2019s lives. One in four teens now uses ChatGPT<\/a> to do schoolwork. Fewer than 20% of schools provide any formal guidance on AI use. This gap between reality and regulation is dangerous \u2014 and growing. Worse still, the Department of Education has proven again and again that it\u2019s unprepared to handle technological change. It blew $95 million on a failed student data system few ever used.<\/p>\n

Around the world, governments are acting with urgency. Half of Finnish schools already use AI-powered tutoring platforms that have improved math scores by 25%. Estonia\u2019s \u201cAI Leap\u201d<\/a> gives 20,000 students access to smart tutors. Singapore has gone from pilot programs to full integration across its school system. Even Chicago has begun implementing AI in classrooms \u2014 with actual timelines and teacher training. New York? We\u2019re still talking.<\/p>\n

The only question is whether we harness the benefits \u2014 educationally and fiscally \u2014 or whether we repeat the social media catastrophe of the 2000s. While we debated screen time and cyberbullying, Silicon Valley rewired our children\u2019s brains for profit. While we dragged our feet banning phones in classrooms, social media colonized our children\u2019s social lives, leaving a generation anxious, depressed, and unable to sustain real relationships.<\/p>\n

Still, some will say it\u2019s too complicated. Too risky. Too expensive. But that\u2019s what skeptics said in South Korea \u2014 until the government invested $740 million in teacher training. That\u2019s what they said in Barcelona \u2014 until civic tech groups built open-source AI tools that parents trust. That\u2019s what they said in Nigeria \u2014 until students gained two years of learning in just six weeks.<\/p>\n

Getting this right here looks like AI-powered tutoring to boost outcomes and enrollment \u2014 sometimes by nearly half a grade level, assuring parents that their kids can get a high-quality education here in NYC. It also means integrating effective, manageable systems to keep at-risk students in school and reduce chronic absenteeism.<\/p>\n

And AI tools can even help the 140,000-plus students facing homelessness by linking schools with city services in real-time, enabling swift interventions to minimize the harm from housing disruptions, and helping schools identify and contact more homeless students who can slip through the cracks.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just about fixing policy. It\u2019s about proving that Democratic governance works. While Donald Trump tries to dismantle public education, we will show that cities can rebuild it better. While Washington flounders, local leaders can rise. We will unite cities \u2014 New York, Chicago, Los Angeles \u2014 around a common purpose: protecting children and preparing them for the future. This is how Democrats win. Not with rhetoric, but with real results. Not with slogans, but with schools that work.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also the best defensive play: the best way to stop Trump\u2019s plans to privatize education and hand it over to the highest bidding AI Bro? Beat them to it \u2014 and build a public alternative that serves every child, in every neighborhood, regardless of ZIP code or immigration status.<\/p>\n

The question isn\u2019t whether AI will change education \u2014 it already has. The question is whether we will let that change be led by profit, or by purpose. Will we allow a handful of private companies to rewrite how 1 million NYC children learn? Or will we act \u2014 to build public tools that serve the public good?<\/p>\n

Tiwathia, a policy and campaign strategist, is a board adviser to the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute (AIPI)<\/a> focusing on urban innovation and AI interventions in the public sphere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mayoral primary was all about affordability: for the New Yorkers of nearly every income level facing parallel…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":96369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,1269,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-96368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-opinion","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114924501375523094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}